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| Photo by Fay Fox. |
Russell Thomas, “a tenor of gorgeously burnished power” (The New York Times), returns to the McCaw Hall stage this January. Thomas sang the role of Ismaele in Nabucco (‘15), and we are excited to welcome him back as Aeneas in Les Troyens in Concert on January 17 & 19.
In this interview, he shares his favorite roles, his inspirations, his future goals, and more.
Up next at Seattle Opera: a concert presentation of Part Two of Les Troyens, the epic based on Virgil’s Aeneid by Hector Berlioz. For two performances only, January 17 and 19, Seattleites will have a chance to hear this incredible show, rarely given in the United States, starring some of today’s leading singers, and with an orchestra of 80 and chorus of 60. Opera-lovers who heard Seattle Opera’s extremely successful concert presentation of Samson and Delilah in 2023 have an idea of what to expect. Although there won’t be full costumes, hair and make-up, sets, props, or complex staging, you’ll enjoy the music and follow the story thanks to lighting, supertitles, and intense performances by singers focused on touching you with their voices.
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| Mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges in our 2023 concert presentation of Samson and Delilah. Photo by Sunny Martini. |
Lucidity, the new chamber opera from composer Laura Kaminsky and librettist David Cote, opened this week at On Site Opera in New York City and arrives in Seattle one week later. The opera explores the connections between music and memory loss by following the entangled lives of four musicians at different stages of their lives and careers.
In conjunction with Lucidity’s premiere, NPR and The New York Times each sat down with the opera’s creators and performers to learn more about how this trenchant new work came to be.
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| Photo by Todd Rosenberg |
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| An image showing the charting of brainwave trajectories of individual neurons using the Expansion Selective Plane Illumination Microscope (ExA-SPIM). |
The opera Lucidity delves into the fragmented, bewildering world of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, a space where memory dissolves and identity blurs. It confronts a cruel paradox: characters who know that they don't know, those who don’t know that they don’t know, and others who are painfully aware of the knowledge lost by those around them. Amid this narrative of memory loss and fading recollection, one aspect remains untouched—music. Music cuts through the fog of memory loss, reaching into the deepest parts of the human brain, stirring something enduring even when other aspects of cognition fail.
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| Sarah Joyce Cooper (Minnie Tate), Greg Watkins (Benjamin Holmes), Aundi Marie Moore (Maggie Porter), Darren Drone (Edmund Watkins), Lisa Arrindell (Ella Sheppard), Marin Bakari (Greene Evans), and Tiffany Townsend (America Robinson) in Jubilee. © Sunny Martini |
"This may be the best show in my 30ish years of Seattle Opera attendance." –Seattle Opera Patron
On October 2, Christina Scheppelmann was awarded the Leadership in Opera Award at the 2024 International Opera Awards in Munich, Germany. With over three decades of leadership experience, this award recognizes Scheppelmann’s many career achievements across three continents. Her award recognizes that “Christina has truly transformed the world of opera, navigating challenges and breaking barriers along the way.”
In the 1920s, Seattle was in the midst of a transformation. No longer a bustling wartime city, tensions were high between employers and labor unions. The wartime population grew while accommodations became scarce. Trauma from the outgoing Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 (Spanish flu) fostered a culture of social distancing and isolation. And the Red Scare, as well as the re-emergence of the KKK, further exacerbated and codified racial animosities against minorities in the majority white town. Despite these adversities, Seattle still advanced. It became a cultural hub, attracting all manner of artists and musicians. It is in this context that the Fisk Jubilee Singers made their first appearance in Seattle.
On October 12, Seattle Opera will present the world premiere of Jubilee, a new opera which highlights the early years of the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University. Created and directed by Tazewell Thompson, this new opera follows the unique journey of the Jubilee Singers as they shared African American spirituals around the world, ultimately changing music forever.
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| A map of the Underground Railroad, a network of routes used by enslaved African Americans seeking freedom. |
In October 2024, Seattle Opera presents the world premiere of Jubilee, a new opera telling the story of how the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University popularized African American spirituals in the years following the Civil War. These traditional songs, created, refined, and shared anonymously by enslaved Americans, are the foundation on which all American music has been built. The music is wild and intense; beautiful and painful; full of despair, hope, and uplift. African American opera singers have long championed the spirituals, often concluding concerts and recitals with these beloved songs. Jubilee makes of the spirituals a full evening’s entertainment.
James Robinson is Seattle Opera’s next General and Artistic Director, beginning September 4, 2024. Learn more about our dynamic new leader in this short Q&A interview, where he discusses why he’s eager to come to Seattle Opera, his philosophy for creating new works and his approach to the standard repertory, his drive for artistic excellence, and what he enjoys doing in his free time.
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| Seattle Opera's next General and Artistic Director, James Robinson. © David Jaewon Oh |
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| Seattle Opera's next General and Artistic Director, James Robinson. © David Jaewon Oh |
James Robinson is the next General and Artistic Director of Seattle Opera, and the fifth person to lead the company in its 61-year history. Robinson begins his tenure on September 4, 2024, replacing Christina Scheppelmann, who takes over as General and Artistic Director of Brussels’ La Monnaie/De Munt in January 2025 following the completion of her contract with Seattle Opera.
Pagliacci has been one of the world’s favorite operas since its 1892 premiere. Here at Seattle Opera we’ve given it five times now (1966, 1974, 1983, 2008, and now 2024), sometimes on its own, sometimes as part of a double-bill with operas such as Cavalleria rusticana or Gianni Schicchi. But among the opera “classics” performed repeatedly in Seattle there’s something unique about Pagliacci: this opera’s creator once visited our fair city.
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| Initially collaborators, Puccini (left) and Leoncavallo (right) became arch-rivals when both made operas about La bohème. |
In honor of Seattle Opera’s newest production of Ruggero Leoncavallo’s masterpiece and to celebrate Pagliacci Pizza’s 45th Anniversary, the Seattle-based pizza maker has created a signature pizza box featuring Sasquatch as the clown.
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| © Pagliacci Pizza |
Pagliacci climaxes in a show-within-a-show: a performance (which goes completely haywire) of traditional Italian comedy, commedia dell’arte. This ancient theatrical form is perhaps best understood as live-action Looney Tunes. Commedia shows didn’t have much by way of plot. They didn’t use scripts. Instead, stock characters and situations provide a framework for improvised jokes, buffoonery, and rampant silliness. The name commedia dell’arte best translates as “artisanal comedy,” i.e. a bespoke performance, like the kind of cheese sold at a farmer’s market. Yes, they followed a recipe, but it comes out differently each time, that’s half the fun.
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| Canio (Diego Torre) and Nedda (Gabriella Reyes) from the 2023 Lyric Opera of Kansas City production of Pagliacci. © Ken Howard |
Monica Conesa, the American Cuban soprano, and Diego Torre, the Mexican Australian tenor are making their Seattle Opera debuts as Nedda and Canio. Discover how they started, their artistic influences, and favorite pastimes.
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| Duke Kim (Count Almaviva) and Megan Moore (Rosina) in The Barber of Seville. © Sunny Martini |
“The Seattle Opera has done it again, in their wonderful and fun new production of The Barber of Seville (one of Rossini’s greatest comic works). Co-produced by Opera Queensland, Seattle Opera, and New Zealand Opera, all I really need to say about it is “WOW!” –British Theatre Guide
This co-production between Opera Queensland (Australia), Seattle Opera and New Zealand Opera began life in 2016 as a 200th birthday celebration of The Barber of Seville. It followed a similarly joyful collaboration between our companies on a 2014 production of Rossini’s Cinderella. Here in 2024, I’m delighted to say that since their Brisbane debuts, both productions have been well-travelled and warmly embraced by audiences in around the world and across Australasia. It is a delight to revisit our salute to Rossini’s comic genius at a time when the world is thirsty for what Barber offers in abundance: humanity, love, laughter and the possibility of a happy ending, all set to Rossini’s exhilarating music.
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| Seattle Opera's new Artistic Ambassador, Kenneth Kellogg, as Malcolm X in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X in 2024. © Sunny Martini. |
Seattle Opera:
You were just named Seattle Opera’s Artistic Ambassador for the 2024/25 season. How are you envisioning this role as you prepare to step into it?
Kenneth Kellogg:
The first thing this new role makes me think of is my elementary school teacher. As a young person, I could always see how much she loved music—it was infectious. It impacted me as a kid, which led me on a path first to enjoying music, and then to music taking over my life.
I think of my role as Artistic Ambassador as an extension of that. Music has been a blessing to my life in so many ways: it’s what I think of day and night, it helps me provide for my family, it’s taken me to worlds that I never thought possible. I just hope I can exude the same infectious spirit for music and art that my teacher did for me.
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| © Philip Newton |
Created and directed by Tazewell Thompson
Vocal arrangements by Dianne Adams McDowell
Orchestrated by Michael Ellis Ingram
Nineteenth century. A theater in Nashville, Tennessee.
Thirteen members of the Fisk Jubilee Singers are gathering behind the curtain in vocal warmups, preparing to perform their concert of spirituals. Post show, the singers retreat to the old military barracks set aside by northern abolitionists to house former slaves, now students and teachers of the Fisk Free Colored School. Eventually changed to Fisk University.
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| © Micah Shumake |
Music by Anthony Davis
Libretto by Thulani Davis
Story by Christopher Davis
Scene 1: 1931, Lansing, Michigan
At the home of Reverend Earl
Little and his wife Louise, a meeting is taking place of the local chapter of Marcus Garvey's Universal Improvement Association, and Rev. Little is late. Louise has been tense all day and members of the meeting are concerned about active white supremacist groups terrorizing local people.
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